I was never much for poetry but I want you to know about one I like. It was one of my favorites in college. In those days I had to study the stuff so most verses weren't actually read but gulped like doses of cod liver oil.
This is one that I let hang around and got to know a little.
It was only when the three of you fell into place that I claimed this poem as my own (even though I stopped wearing Victorian nightgowns after I turned 30).
Do me a favor and read it more than once. Even if you don't like it please read it knowing that certain lines still knock me over. Ask me if you want to know which ones and we'll talk about them.
Morning Song
by Sylvia Plath
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
